Posted 09 November 2016

How to transfer your data from PS4 to PS4 Pro

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If you’re adding a PS4 Pro – or another PS4 – to your gaming set-up and want to easily transfer all your games, data and settings, we’ve got you covered.

Making a complete data transfer

Following these steps will quickly copy everything from your existing PS4 to your new PS4 Pro – all you’ll need is at least one LAN cable (sold separately), both consoles to be switched on, and broadband network access.

1. Check your system software is version 4.0 or higher

First, make sure both your existing PS4 and your PS4 Pro have been updated to the latest system software. This should have happened on your existing PS4 automatically, last time you went online – but if you’re not sure, go to “Settings” and scroll down to “System Software Update”.

2. Connect to your broadband network and sign in to PSN

You’ll need to switch on both PS4 consoles and ensure they both connect to your home broadband network – either via Wi-Fi or with LAN cables – so you can sign in to PlayStation Network.

For the data transfer, only your new PS4 Pro will need to be connected to your TV. Sign in to the new console with your PSN ID and password to get started.

3. Prepare your data

Once that’s done, your PS4 Pro will detect that you’re signing in to a new console with your PSN ID and you’ll see a screen asking if you want to start transferring data from your old console to your shiny new one.

Follow the on-screen prompt to confirm you want to start the transfer process, then press and hold the Power button on your old console (until you hear a beep) to prepare your data.

4. Connect both consoles with a LAN cable

Next, connect the two PS4s together with a LAN cable, into their respective LAN ports on the back of the console.

Alternatively, you can connect each PS4 to your router, using two LAN cables. The transfer process will be exactly the same.

5. Choose the data you want to transfer

You’ll have a choice of what data you want to transfer; you can pick which applications or games are moved across (or just copy all of them), as well as your game save data, screenshots and videos you’ve captured, themes and settings.

Once you’ve chosen what data is going to be moved across, you’ll be shown how much free space will be left on the new console’s hard drive once the process is complete, and an estimate of how long the transfer will take.

6. Activate your primary PS4

Finally, you’ll be asked if you want to activate your new console as your primary PS4. This will allow you to automatically download updates, upload save game data to your PS Plus cloud storage and share content with other users.

So what will be transferred?

All of your game data – including downloaded games from PlayStation Store, installed data from disc games and all saved game data.

Any folders that you’ve set up.

Any screenshots and videos you’ve saved.

All of your synced trophy data.

All messages you’ve sent and received to your PSN friends.

Profile data of any other user accounts that have signed in to your PS4 with a PSN ID.

What won’t be transferred?

Any password data – for example, your PSN, Netflix or Amazon passwords. You’ll need to re-enter these on your new console when you sign in.

Profile data of any user accounts that have never signed in to your PS4 with a PSN ID.

Any un-synched trophy data.

What if I only have access to my new PS4 Pro?

If you no longer have your old PS4 because you’ve traded it in for your PS4 Pro, or if you’d prefer to start playing with a fresh console and want to download games one at a time as and when you want to play them, you can skip the data transfer process by hitting “Cancel” when asked if you want to move your data.

Games that you’ve downloaded from PlayStation Store or PlayStation Plus, and any apps you’ve previously downloaded will be visible in your Library (on the far right of your PS4 home screen).

Scroll down to the “Purchased” tab and you can select these and download them one by one.

If you’re a PlayStation Plus member, be sure to upload your saved game data to your online storage before upgrading to your new console. That way, when you sign in to PSN, you can access up to 10GB worth of game saves from your cloud storage, download them and pick up your games where you left off on your new console.

Anything else to bear in mind?

If you’re upgrading to PS4 Pro and are connecting to a 4K television, make sure you use the supplied HDMI cable to get the best quality resolution from your new console.

This process isn’t just for moving data from a PS4 to a PS4 Pro – if you’re adding a new standard PS4 to your setup (for example, a 1TB console in addition to a 500GB model), the process is exactly the same.

Nothing will be erased from the existing PS4, so you don’t need to worry about losing anything in the transfer. Try not to interrupt the transfer though – if any LAN cables are unplugged, or either PS4 loses power, the process will stop and you’ll have to start again. To guard against this, the power button is disabled during the transfer.

If you’ve started using your new console before you begin a full data transfer onto it, anything you’ve saved to the hard drive will be wiped.

If you are planning to trade in your old PS4 for a new PS4 Pro, it’s very important that you format the hard drive before it has a new owner. To do this, go to Settings, scroll to the bottom of the menu to ‘Initialisation’, and choose ‘Initialise PS4’, then ‘Full’. Only do this if you’re absolutely sure that you’re trading in your console, and that any game save data and anything else is saved to either cloud storage, or a USB stick. Once you’ve initialised the PS4, the data is gone for good from that hard drive.

And that’s it. Everything should be transferred to your PS4 Pro and ready to play, just like you left it on your old PS4. Enjoy!

@Morfea – you’ll also be unable to play your digital games if you’re not signed in to PSN. This can be a pain on those all-too-frequent occasions when PSN is down for maintenance

The same can also lock you out of disc-based games, too – I was unable to play my Witcher 3 disc on my secondary PS4 when I couldn’t connect to PSN to verify the license for “alternative look for Ciri”

I did a backup to external then swapped the 1Tb for my 2Tb I had in og ps4 and then restored all 978gb of data in less than 6 hours! Only issue is most of us won’t have a spare 2Tb external drive laying around

Nice guide. I will be moving my 1TB SSD into the new PS4, so for me I need to back up to an external USB drive first (as I don’t want to redownload 500GB worth of games and apps), then wipe the SSD, move it into the PS4 PRO, then install the 4.05 software on it, and then restoring the backup from the USB drive.Will take a bit longer, but SSDs for the win :)

I dont mind re-downloading everything the 2 TB in a samsung and the installs are super fast on it! I recommend it to anyone who sees this its on amazon for $95 !=) Cant wait till tomorrow ashame tyeres no midnight launch though =/ Got a new headset ready and waiting and an elite controller on the way for it! 4ever play!!! =)

Also, is it possible to restore a backup from my old PS4 on the Pro (as this is not mentioned as a way to transfer content). I just made a backup of my old console, and would not want to find out that I can’t restore it after I’ve wiped the system.

I have only a Full HD TV (1920×1080), is it worth to buy or change my original PS4 for a Pro version? I have a 2TB HDD inside my PS4, and it’s almost full. How big HDD supported by PS4 Pro? 4TB would be good enough..

I’m seeing 80 minutes for a transfer of roughly 50 GB in that image, please tell me it speeds up, I have a 2 TB drive with 1.8 TB filled….. I know the USB system transfers were notoriously slow. Kind of figured It would be faster than this on the Pro.

Man, my situation sucks. I have to back up 888GB of data because i have e a 2TB HDD on my original PS4 and i’m selling my original to my boss with the 1TB. Soo i have to swap the drives and restore the data. This is gonna take awhile…

PLEASE ANSWER! After the initial set up and initial transfer, say you missed out a couple of games’ worth of data to save time and allow you to play the console faster -are you then able to transfer all the other data from your old console at another time? Or is there only one data transfer allowed?

Each time you perform a data transfer, it’ll format the HDD that’s in your new console – so no, you won’t be able to do it that way.

However, any games you’ve bought from PlayStation Store will be saved in your library, so you could download them one by one whenever you want to. You can also upload your game saves to your PS Plus cloud storage, so they’re available on your new console.

Yikes, 12 hours of data transfer :( I booked a day off work to enjoy some lovely 4k gaming and instead I’m stuck waiting for data to transfer until 2am in the morning. Obviously this is just one of those things, would have been nice for Sony to have specified that this would take the good part of an entire day to carry out, I honestly was expecting about 3 hours tops.

Is anyone having a different experience? I’d like to know if I’m doing something incorrectly as the above image on the guide shows a much quicker relative time. For the record I followed all the on screen prompts and have two lan cables connected via a router.

To be honest it’s hard to give an accurate estimate of how long a transfer will take – when testing the process in the office it was a lot faster than that, but I’m not sure what the conditions were to make it faster, or how it will vary.

If we have all of our data stored online, would we need to worry about formatting when performing a HDD transfer? I currently have a 2TB HDD on my regular PS4 and would want to swap it for the standard 1TB HDD that comes with the PS4 Pro. Am I correct in assuming that as long as I can long into my PSN account and provide the necessary firmware update (as I did when I upgraded from 500GB to 2TB) then I can simply redownload all of my save data?

Thanks Topov, I’ve just switched to direct cable and it has reduced the eta modestly to about 2 hours less than it was. I’ve decided to prevent some games from being transferred which has reduced my overall time to 6 hours. Still a bit confusing though, so I’m now only transferring 198.4 GB of data over and it still has the same eta for your 833GB… do you get different speed lan cables? Maybe mine is a very old cable?

I’d like to add to what he said, what I found useful ( I updated my PS4 PRO to a 2TB SSHD is that if you didn’t have a lot of data maybe 350 ish GB) your best bet would be to just install the regular saved satay and system settings the games keep them off the Pro until after it saved me time to just re download my games especially if you don’t have all the extra I have (try re downloading 1.07TB with my connection) @ 20.22GB I was able to download it within 55 minutes to an hour 25 and if you have digital games and your pro is set to your primary account it made things much smoother for me , not sure if I explained anything well enough but I’m tired and been up for quite some time cooking for thanksgiving , so Happy ThanksGiving to all

1) Should I deactivate the old PS4 as the primary account and activate the Pro? If not, how should I go about it?

2) Would I need to download games, saves and data from the library after I set up the Pro, or can I use the Ethernet method? If I use the Ethernet method, will I still have all the info on the old PS4 after the transfer?

3) Can I make purchases on both devices?

4) Will I be able to use PS+ on both devices?

5) If the PSN goes down, will I still be able to play games on both devices?

6) How will remote play work with this If I want to take advantage of the Pro’s dual band a.c. Wi-Fi and the ability to remote play at 1080p?

I think that sums it up. I probably forgot something, but it’s a good start.

I really, really would appreciate and all help, suggestions and advice on this matter. It may help me decide whether I will keep the old device.

1) Should I deactivate the old PS4 as the primary account and activate the Pro? If not, how should I go about it?

2) Would I need to download games, saves and data from the library after I set up the Pro, or can I use the Ethernet method? If I use the Ethernet method, will I still have all the info on the old PS4 after the transfer?

3) Can I make purchases on both devices?

4) Will I be able to use PS+ on both devices?

5) If the PSN goes down, will I still be able to play games on both devices?

6) How will remote play work with this If I want to take advantage of the Pro’s dual band a.c. Wi-Fi and the ability to remote play at 1080p?

I think that sums it up. I probably forgot something, but it’s a good start.

I really, really would appreciate and all help, suggestions and advice on this matter. It may help me decide whether I will keep the old device.

1. Depends what you intend to do with your old PS4. You can activate/deactivate as required after the transfer.2. No need to download anything if you perform a full data transfer. The transfer leaves the old PS4 untouched – data is copied, not moved.3. You can make purchases on any PS4 your are signed into.4. Yes, as long as you’re signed in with your PSN ID. Other users will benefit from certain PS+ entitlements (eg. online) when playing on your primary PS4.5. I’ve heard some people having problems on their secondary PS4 if PSN is down.6. Don’t know, sorry. I think remote play will only work on your primary PS4.

Thank you. What do you think would be faster for transfer, Ethernet method or downloading from your library? I know that it probably depends on internet strength and speed, but let’s say that I have a really good speed and network.

Everything I’ve read talks about using the premium HDMI cable to get the best results but what if you have PSVR? The Supplied ‘premium’ cable will go to the VR Control Box and the VR Box connects to the TV with the supplied HDMI cable. Surely then you’d need two premium cables otherwise the one from the VR Box to the TV is the weak link and bottlenecks the data? Would really like advice on this please.

This is a known and ridiculous issue with PSVR. If there’s a PSVR unit between your PS4 and your TV, you won’t get HDR. You need to connect directly to the TV for the best picture, and only connect to PSVR when you’re actually using it

What if I want to run both my traditional ps4 & my new ps4 pro. I plan to move my ps4 to the sitting room, my ps4 will go into the games room. Depending on circumstance I will be playing off both, but not at the same time obviously.

How can I ensure that no matter which I choose to power on will have the most up to date save game data / patches etc. etc.

System updates can be set to be done automatically so they’ll almost always be up-to-date. Saves can be set to cloud storage so that they’re accessible from any PS4. As far as using both, you would actually be the only one that could use each of them if the purchases were made under your account. Anyone else with a profile would be forced to use the PS4 that is set as your primary.

“Alternatively, you can connect each PS4 to your router, using two LAN cables. The transfer process will be exactly the same.”There could be a speed problem. Many people have routers with 100 Mbit ports. PS4 has a gigabit port.

OK so my transfer has been stuck on 526.2GB/557.8GB(10 Minutes Left) for over half an hour now. Should I just hit the cancel button and start over? I’m going to anyway because idk when or if this post will get a response.

It’s not an option per say. You have to know what you’re doing with manual LAN settings under the connection settings. If you give them both an IP address on the same subnet then they should be able to find each other with no problem. Make it something simple like giving one an IP address of 192.168.1.1, the other 192.168.1.2 and give both of them a subnet of 255.255.255.0. That should work.

Word of warning! I backed up my 1TB drive that was NOT even half full. I traded in my system for a pro. When I went to restore from the USB drive, it said there was not enough room on the new PS4! It says my backup size is 943GB, and the total available storage on the pro, is about 820. So I lost everything and have to re-download all of those games.

dear rhys, no matter what I try, my ps4 cannot be found on the pro.. I’ve made sure they’re both on the same wifi connection, restarted both.. logged into both on psn.. pushed retry many times.. “no ps4found”.. please help!

I’ve setup the internet connection on both ps4s more than once.. what I HAVE noticed is, they have different IP addresses although both are on exactly the same wifi network.. does this matter? thanks man!

thanks dragon, funny (odd) though when we read and follow all the instructions above, it says nothing about needing or having a different IP for each ps4.. sounds so easy above.. I’m thinking I might try connecting the 2 playstations with the ethernet/LAN cable.. I am too far from the router to use cables, it’s got to be wifi.. when I switch from one to the other they say another console has logged me out but when I press ok, my user profile appears without logging in.. I can use both on the same psn but not transfer data..

I’m having the same problem other people have mentioned, but I can’t see a post in which someone has answered the question: What do you do if the old PS4 shuts off when you press the power button for one second and the new PS4 says the LAN isn’t connected? This is a new LAN cable that was previously connected and working.

I hear ya, man.. they made it sound so easy.. so we’re all having various problems but no answers or definitive solutions from the mods and devs.. guess I’ll keep playin 2k17 on my old one and just buy new ones for the new pro.. got say I’m disappointed though, really wanted to see if 2k17 looked and flowed better on the pro.. guess I’ll never know.. both on the same wifi network, hookin up the LAN cable didn’t work.. still sayin “ps4 not found” ..????

Hi – from your comments it sounds like you’re trying to transfer data purely via Wi-Fi, without connecting the two consoles with a LAN cable? You’ll need to connect the two together, as per the steps above. (I think you can transfer data purely over Wi-Fi, but it’s not recommended – it could take a long time!).

Alternatively, back up your game saves to PS Plus, download 2K17 on your new console, then download the save game file and keep playing :)